Super Floral Addition
European retailers have always enjoyed great success selling floral. To help American retailers gain insight into the role merchandising plays in this success, The Super Floral Show has added a new European merchandising display to the show floor. This display, entitled “The Floating Flower Market,” will be featured during The Super Floral Show Exhibition scheduled for June 23-25, 2005 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas.
Centrally located on the show’s exhibit floor, the display is designed to look like the Amsterdam Flower Market and will feature three merchandising concepts used by successful organic and lifestyle chains throughout Europe. One uses African and European products to create a very strict and organized German color blocking. Another will use products from the United States to create a more “boutique-like” presentation as seen in organic and lifestyle chains in major European cities. The third will use products from South America to demonstrate a loose color blocking as used in mass markets in France and Spain.
Pieter Landman, a product development consultant and the display’s creator, believes that high-volume floral buyers from the United States and Canada can learn a lot from the exhibit. “The display is designed to let North Americans see what consumers want from a different point of view and to challenge them to ‘think outside the box’ to help deliver it.”
In addition to the display, Landman will conduct a special breakfast presentation on European merchandising. This theatrical and interactive presentation will feature panel discussions of the pros and cons of European merchandising techniques as well as discuss changes in flower consumption today and in the future. Sitting on the panel will be Alexander Kleerebezem, buyer/coordinator of fresh cut flowers for Blume 2000, and Leo Kapiteyn, sales and marketing director of dry flowerbulbs for the Holland Group.
“Over the years, there has been much debate about why European retailers sell more flowers than American retailers. Most people suggest that it is cultural, but there are those that think that merchandising plays a role. This feature lets SFS attendees see, touch and smell European displays, so that they can decide for themselves,” added Don Berey, Super Floral Show director.
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